The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History (MLFH) is a non-profit 501c3 organization in Palm Beach County, Florida that was established in 1999. The current programs include Children & Parents Day, theTaste History Culinary Tours of Historic Palm Beach County, Florida; the Narrated Bus Tours of Palm Beach County, Florida.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau passes away at age 81. From Juice Stand to Fashion Mogul, a tribute to Lilly Pulitzer and Memorial Photos

From 2010 to 2012, the non-profit Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History presented in Boynton Beach, Florida the exhibit The Queen of Prep: Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau. The anthropological exhibit focused on the family history and origins of the Lilly Pulitzer fashion brand. Collectors from throughout the USA loaned or donated Lilly Pulitzer fashions for the display. The Museum also hosted an 80th birthday brunch for Lilly in November 2011. Click here to view photos. Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau visited the exhibit and with great delight met many of her fans. Due to popular demand, other museums have requested that MLFH organize a traveling version of The Queen of Prep exhibit. A re-designed and expanded version of the exhibit will be displayed.

Lori J. Durante with Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau at her 80th birthday brunch hosted at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History. Photo by Lucein Capehart Photography

Place setting for the 80th birthday brunch hosted in 2011 for Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau's 80th birthday brunch at the Musem of Lifestyle & Fashion History. Photo by Lucein Capehart Photography

More than fifty years ago, a trend of
bright, bold and unique prints in the form of pink monkeys, green elephants and
flowers in rainbow colors hit the American fashion scene.It all started when Lilly Pulitzer, a young, New York socialite, opened a juice stand in Palm Beach in the
1950s.The citrus stains that splashed
upon her clothing inspired her to create brightly colored designs to help
camouflage those stains.These designs
ultimately became the unofficial uniform for the affluent, and Lilly’s
signature pink and green colors emerged as the symbol of the authentic Palm Beach
lifestyle.In 1959, Lilly became
president of her own fashion company Lilly Pulitzer, Inc.

1970s Lilly Pulitzer maxi-dress from Kristina Krieger of California was displayed at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History

Born
Lillian McKim in Roslyn, New York in 1931, she married Peter Pulitzer
of the famous Pulitzer Prize family in 1952.The family settled in Palm Beach where a
free-spirited Lilly Pulitzer operated a juice stand using produce from a citrus
grove in Fort Pierce, Florida that was owned by Peter Pulitzer.The juice stand was located in a tiny shop in
Via Mizner located right off Worth Avenue in the Town of Palm Beach, FL.

Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau at The Queen of Prep exhibit at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History.

Lilly Pulitzer tells the story like this in
her Essentially Living book “there was this little juice and fruit bar
in the back right here.I would slice
the oranges and squeeze the fruit to make the juice.My friends would stop in and we would just
talk and laugh and have fun.The twist
(a citrus garnishment for cocktails) had just hit Palm Beach, so the Lilly shop was where it
was all happening.But, boy, was it
messy.At the end of the day I was
covered in pulp and dribbles of orange juice. I had to do something.I used to have this wonderful Swiss lady make
shifts for me.I found this bright,
bright fabric, the same colors as the fruit, so that the splashes and mess
wouldn’t show. People would say, ‘Oh, they’re great. Why don’t you have them in
the shop?’ So I went down to Woolworth’s, got some fabric and had twelve
dresses made for me, and I had just hung them haphazardly around the store.This was the early sixties.The Kennedy’s were down here; Jack had just
been elected President.The eyes of the
whole world were on Palm Beach.
Jackie wore one of my dresses – it was made from kitchen curtain material – and
people went crazy. They took off like zingo. Everybody loved them, and I went
into the dress business.”

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Billie Anne Hartl, Lori J. Durante, Lilly Pultizer Rousseau and Lisa Birnbach, author of the Official Preppy Handbook and True Prep, at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History

The initial style of the Lilly
clothing designs were simple Shift dresses that appealed to a wealthy client
base who included Lilly’s boarding school friend Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Kennedy and Pulitzer had attended together
the prestigious college preparatory boarding school Miss Porter’s School located in Farmington, Connecticut.
And, others who wore the Lilly designs were various descendants of the
Gilded-age titans who included the Rockefellers,
Vanderbilts and Whitneys.Because the Lilly-style was so strongly
associated with wealthy people who attended and/or sent their children to
preparatory schools and vacationed in affluent resort locales, Lilly Pulitzer
became known as the “Queen of Prep.”

Lilly
Pulitzer once described her iconic Shift dress as a “cross between a chemise and mumu.”

The Official Preppy Handbook author Lisa Birnbach (left) with Skyler Carosella and her mother Vanessa Carosella at the Lilly exhibit at the Meum of Lifestyle & Fahsion History

Lilly
Pulitzer, Inc. thrived with more than 30 stores eventually offering wares for
children, men and the home until the company closed its doors in 1984.
Lilly’s original business partner was Laura
Robbins who started with Lilly at the juice stand in Palm Beach, Florida.
During the company's operation in 1959 to 1984, it had a factory located in Miami, Florida
on 29th Avenue
between 34th Street.And, the majority of the fabrics were designed
and manufactured by the Key West Hand
Print Fabrics company that was located in Key West, Florida.Key West Hand Print Fabrics was established
by Bill Johnson, Peter Pell and Jimmy
Russell who are all now deceased.Lilly provided the company with substantial business with her custom
fabric orders.The fabrics company grew
to more than 200 employees and was one of the largest employers in Key West, Florida.They had a team of skilled artisans lead by Suzie dePoo (aka Suzie Zuzek) who
developed licensed print designs exclusively for the Lilly Pulitzer fashion
line.The fabrics were hand printed via
a silk-screen process and the yardage was sold to the Lilly company, and then shipped
to her factory in Miami where Lilly provided more directive on the types of
clothes styles to be made for her clients of old-money stock and the
upper-class.

Both
Lilly’s company and Key West Hand Print Fabrics started around the same time
and attributed to each others success. Moreover, Peter Pell was from the same socially acceptable pedigree as Lilly
Pulitzer.Peter Pell is a descendant of the
politically important Claiborne-Pell
family whose family tree includes Congressman, Senators and Ambassadors who
served office as far back as the late 1700s. And, the Pell of Key West was
related to the Pell of the same last name who sponsored the US Pell Grant. And, Bill
Johnson was from coal-money in Knoxville,
Tennessee.His father was George Washington Johnson who
owned the GW Johnson Coal company.The
coal industry provided Bill Johnson with the financial means to fund the
establishment of the fabrics company in Key
West where he was the CEO and became a prominent
businessman in the Keys.

Lori J. Durante with Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History. The Palm Beach mural was designed Skyler Carosella

Jay
Steinhardt of Steinhardt Textiles fondly remembered “my company represented Crisali Fabrics based in Los Angeles, CA
and we sold fabrics to Lilly in the mid-1960s. About 2% of the
fabrics that Lilly used came from Crisali but about 98% came from Key West
Hand Print Fabrics in Key West.”“At my business meetings with Lilly she was
always barefoot.”

Lilly Pulitzer dress from the Jubilee Collection from Siv Lam of San Francisco, California was displayed at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History

Lilly’s company became a legendary business
headquartered in the Town of Palm Beach, Florida in Palm BeachCounty.The business offices were at 400 Royal Palm Way
in Palm Beach, FL
and eventually re-located their headquarters to 336 South County Road in the Town of Palm Beach.At its zenith, Lilly’s business grew to an
estimated $10 million in revenue that had an economic impact in the Town of Palm Beach, Palm Beach County and the State of Florida
that helped to create jobs along with defining an American Preppy look and imbedding
the combination of pink and green as official colors of Palm Beach and Preppies.

The Colgate-Palmolive Company awarded to Lilly Pulitzer in 1973 the Colgate
Winners Circle in the category of Sportswear Designer. In 1979, The
Palm Beach Daily News awarded Lilly the Leadership Award of the
year.

1960s Lilly Pulitzer cocktail tray and napkins from Molly McKeown of Saratoga, New York was displayed at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History

One of the first major department stores to
carry the brightly colored fashion line was Lord & Taylor at
their flagship store located on Fifth
Avenue in New
York City.This
was a major coup because Lord & Taylor is one of the
oldest major department stores in the USA.Lilly said of her initial experience in
merchandising in those early days: “it
took a little explaining that there would never be any wools and heavy knits in
the Lilly collection – so it was either buy the line then or never.”

In 1984, Lilly Pulitzer, Inc. filed for bankruptcy and closed its doors.During the 1980s the preppy-look had lost its popular image and preppy retailers were at cross-roads about how to change their image and appeal to a new audience and style of fashion.

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Board members of the Boca Raton Museum of Art Auxiliary toured the Queen of Prep exhibit at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History.

The "Lilly Chair." Board members of the Auxiliary of the Boca Raton Museum of Art toured the Queen of Prep exhibit at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History

The fashion line re-emerged again in 1992 when the rights were purchased by Sugartown Worldwide, Inc.The owners of Sugartown Worldwide were Harvard-grads turned business partners Scott Beaumont, James Bradbeer and Nancy Gary.The company was founded for the purpose of reintroducing the Lilly line and is based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.

The Boca Raton Antiques Club (in front of the Lilly Palm Tree Mural) was hosted on a guided tour of the Queen of Prep exhibit at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History

The Boca Raton Antiques Club was hosted on a guided tour of the Queen of Prep exhibit at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History

When Sugartown reintroduced the Lilly Pulitzer fashion line in the 1990s, they established a partnership with C.Orricostores located in the Town Palm Beach to sell the Lilly clothes and to also operate what is known as Lilly Pulitzer Signature Shops or Lilly Pulitzer via Palm Beach.

Vintage Lilly Shift dress from the personal collection of Elinor Stephens was displayed at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashon History. Stephens purchased many of her Lillys in the 1960s and 1970s from Lord & Taylor in New York.

Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau with her dearest friend Ann Fraser at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History.

Janine Picone of Artfully Baked created the pink and green cupcakes for the 80th birthday brunch for Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau hosted in November 2011 at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History.

2 comments:

i was very excited to see this-iworked/and my mother-Jacquie Staubs(model-shop manager) KWHPF in the early days-i in the art dept.with Peter-Suzy-Dori- and knew Lilly well-my mom passed just days after Lilly...obby if you can blease contact me-Jacqstaubs@yahoo.com- like to say hi..also have some vintage Lilly dresses from the 60's and great photos of all of us!

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About Me

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History (MLFH) is a non-profit museum. MLFH offers educational programs and history and retrospective anthropology exhibits showcasing lifestyle, cultures, people, places, fashion trends, clothes, costumes, textiles, architecture, furnishings, decorative arts, interior designs, locomotives and toys, and information about popular uses of artifacts by people/events of various periods of time. The goal of the Museum’s mission is to collect and preserve objects and artifacts that relate to the Museum’s mission; provide educational and; cultural arts programs for children, families, the general public and the economically disadvantaged; and the goal is to enhance tourist attractions and the economy of the area. Current services offered are traveling exhibits, the annual Children and Parents Day, the Narrated Bus Tours of Historic Palm Beach County; and the Taste History Culinary Tours of Historic Palm Beach County, Florida. Call 561-243-2662 or 561-638-8277.